In the certiorari petition, the plaintiffs characterized the appellate court’s ruling as “gravely mistaken, entirely unprecedented, and of extremely significant consequences.” The appeal argues that the Second Circuit improperly gave deference to Argentine law interpretation and local court rulings, departing from established Supreme Court precedent. The March decision by Judges Denny Chin and Beth Robinson, over Judge José Cabranes’ dissent, found that Preska had misinterpreted Argentine law when she concluded the state failed to launch a mandatory public tender offer for minority shareholders during the expropriation.
The Supreme Court petition does not guarantee review. The high court receives between 7,000 and 8,000 certiorari requests per session and grants review to approximately 80 cases. Burford itself had previously disclosed that reversal rates for New York first-instance verdicts stood below 10 percent. Legal observers suggest the Court is unlikely to accept the case, though it retains full discretion and faces no fixed deadline to decide.
The litigation dates to Argentina’s 2012 law expropriating 51 percent of YPF shares held by Repsol. Petersen entities, formerly owned by the Eskenazi family, argued that taking control triggered a statutory obligation to offer minority shareholders an exit opportunity. The societies subsequently entered bankruptcy proceedings in Spain, with litigation rights acquired and financed by specialized funds including Burford.
Burford holds 35 percent of the Petersen bankruptcy estate and 82 percent of Eton Park’s claim. Following the adverse March ruling, the book value of these positions collapsed from approximately $1.7 billion to roughly $100 million. Bankruptcy administrators in Spain control 30 percent of the Petersen stake. Any eventual recovery would first satisfy debts to international banks that financed the Eskenazi family’s YPF entry between 2008 and 2010.
Earlier in September, Burford separately filed claims at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes on behalf of the Petersen entities, seeking compensation for the expropriation through the bilateral investment treaty framework. The parallel ICSID proceeding provides an alternative venue independent of the U.S. court system.
The YPF defense has spanned the administrations of Cristina Kirchner, Mauricio Macri, Alberto Fernández, and Javier Milei, operating as de facto state policy across ideological transitions. Argentina’s Treasury Attorney prepared its Supreme Court defense strategy in the months following the March appellate victory, anticipating Burford’s petition.
This article was curated and published as part of our South American energy market coverage.
